The Patrick County Board of Supervisors discussed county finances, taxes, and how to balance its budget at its Monday, April 28 meeting. The board also reviewed various fiscal year (FY) 2025–26 budget scenarios.
Looking ahead to upcoming property reassessments, Doug Perry, of the Smith River District, said something’s going to have to give.
“Specifically the rate to match the property values to balance all that out. Where it goes from there, I do feel that increasing the personal property tax as everybody in the county doesn’t own real estate and that would get more people feeding into it,” he said.
In response to Blue Ridge District representative Steve Marshall’s proposal of increasing the personal property tax by 0.16 cents each year for a three-year period, Perry said that if the board was just looking at paper and spreadsheets, he’d be in support.
“However, as we heard tonight, we’re not looking at spreadsheets and widgets and gadgets—we’re looking at people. And I think the 16-cents is a little much, or a lot much,” he said.
Instead, Perry said he would support a one- to two-cents increase on the personal property tax.
Chairman Jonathan Wood, of the Peters Creek District, said as much as he would love to pull a cattle trailer up Floyd Mountain with a $2,000 pickup, “it’s just not going to do it.”
“And coming down it definitely won’t do it at the bottom when I need to stop,” he added.
For many of the county’s small businesses that focus on landscaping, hauling, or lawn mowing, Wood said an increase in personal property taxes could add up quickly.
“I know I talked to a gentleman, he caught me at” a store “the other day, and he said, ‘I wish I didn’t have to have an $80,000 truck, but basically …, for me to pull it down the road, I have to have it,’” he said.
Like Perry, Wood noted not everyone in the county owns real estate.
“The personal property is a little more fair across the board, and I still think we can look at some other options along the way — whether it’s a much, much smaller increase, whether it’s looking at the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) a little bit,” he said.
Wood said the budget scenario involving pulling $197,000 from reserves to balance the proposed spending plan isn’t the optimal way to balance the budget, but could work in the short term to give the board more time to gather input.
“It’s something we have to look at in the long run. I think that’s something we might have to put off a little bit longer to figure out exactly what other sources of income that we can come up with,” he said.
Vice-chairman Andrew Overby, of the Dan River District, said taxes are going to be a “give and take” no matter what the board does.
“We’re going to get everybody somewhere. You have to understand too that just because other counties and other localities are doing things a certain way doesn’t mean that’s what we have to do,” he said.
Overby noted the rising value of vehicles has essentially resulted in a windfall for the county in recent years.
He said he sold a vehicle a couple of years ago for $2,000 less than what he paid for it 10 years earlier.
“But that’s just the way that the values of vehicles and stuff like that has gone up exponentially over the last few years. It may have not changed the tax rate, but that does not mean that the citizens are not paying more taxes just because of that inflation and we’ve got to figure out a better way than just saying, ‘well, we can just raise taxes and plug this hole.’ We’ve got to do things other than just raise taxes, that can’t always be the solution because it’s not putting us in the right direction at the end of the day,” he said.
Even with personal property taxes, Overby said many people don’t realize mobile homes are included.
“Some of our poorest residents in the county are living in mobile homes,” he added.
Overby also challenged the idea that a tax hike wouldn’t impact everyone.
“Even if they’re a renter, the landlord’s going to raise the rent whatever amount that is in order to compensate for it, if they want to continue to make the same amount of money on it. You can’t necessarily sit here and say, ‘well, if we raise this it’s not going to affect poor people.’ That’s just not true,” Overby said.
While numbers are easy to analyze, Wood said, at the end of the day it’s about people.
“That’s what you said, Mr. Perry, and that’s the hard part. That’s really, really the hard part. We’re trying to do what’s best for everybody sitting in here. That’s what I said during my invocation tonight — we’re looking out for the county and our citizens, and that’s what we’re trying to do, so it’s going to take a little bit of time. Like I said, Mr. Perry you said it great tonight when you said numbers are one thing, but people are definitely another thing,” he said.
Clayton Kendrick, of the Mayo River District, said he agreed with the rest of the board.
“I don’t think we ought to raise any taxes. We ought to use what we’ve got coming in and cut where we’ve got to cut. That’s what the majority of people have to do—they can’t call Social Security and tell them they need a raise because blah, blah, blah,” he said.
Marshall said his main concern is understanding — and having the board understand — that the county and its budgets also have to respond to inflationary pressures.
“Eventually, you have to increase your revenue to cover your costs. It has to be done, it will be done. It’s like that immovable object that’s coming,” he said.
Marshall said his concern is where the county finds the revenue.
“Real estate taxes, just by their nature they’re regressive taxes. Lower income people pay a larger position of their yearly income, even though the numbers are the same, they pay a larger portion of their yearly income in property taxes where a wealthier person pays a smaller percentage of their yearly income,” he said.
Marshall said he wants the board to be cognizant as it goes forward with the reassessment that even though the percentages are the same the harm to lower income people should be mitigated.
“Make sure that as much as you can that it’s coming from a fair, non-regressive tax,” he said.
In other matters, the board:
- Heard a fire and emergency medical services (EMS) study from Virginia Department of Fire Programs Coordinator of Community Risk Reduction Ken Brown.
- Adopted changes to the county’s comprehensive plan in a 4–1 vote. Perry cast the dissenting vote.
